Jump to content

MeerkatBong

crowd sourced
  • Posts

    389
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by MeerkatBong

  1. An interesting read from NYT which highlights how the world prioritizes soccer and the WC over other current issues, and how businesses prioritize their revenue (surprise surprise) as they follow the money via the fans and viewers. The quoted is NYT; bold emphasis my own:

    "Countries — the next World Cup will be in the United States, Canada and Mexico — trip over themselves for the chance to host the nearly monthlong tournament. Many governments in Asia, South America and Africa, future growth markets for big business, care little about the social issues that dominate Western news media coverage. It’s all a sharp contrast to the way cities have often had to abandon plans to bid to host the Olympics in the face of fierce public opposition. And FIFA, mindful that soccer is a winning program for governments, has promised large funding for its national associations — a sure way to keep countries loyal.

    ...

    Still, the biggest brands, including Visa, Sony and McDonald’s, were quick to sign up and showed little sign of jumping ship amid the controversy. When Bloomberg contacted 76 FIFA sponsors and teams this month, not one said it was reconsidering its participation. Adidas expects up to a 400-million euro sales boost from the tournament.

    ...

    The market has spoken: There has been no detectable business boycott and, as FIFA points out, sponsorships are sold out, with longtime partners like Coca-Cola and Adidas appearing alongside newcomers like Crypto.com.

    Back home, many of these companies are quick to advertise their environmental, social and governance, or E.S.G., credentials, and market their commitment to causes such as L.G.B.T.Q. rights. Yet even in an era where a corporate misstep in Qatar can be amplified on social media, the tournament is showing that companies are willing to risk a backlash that they bet will be forgiven (or forgotten) as long as the world is tuning in. The potential payoff is enormous. Soccer is the world’s most popular sport, and FIFA expects five billion people to watch the tournament (think the Super Bowl viewership times roughly 50). FIFA expects the event to generate about $4.7 billion. The organization has seemingly shaken off the scandal, and is awash in money and with all of the power that goes with it."

    • Like 1
    • Rage+1 1
  2. 12 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

    A manic mood has hit again so last night I drew up plans to produce $10,000 art in one month*, starting today.

    This is split into 6 categories from baseball cards to block prints to 4 common sizes of paintings.

    If I manage to do more of any one type, cool, I can ease up on the others. The main thing is how to make maximum use of my cluttered work space.

    Distribution and sales will be another day's problem.

    To help with the larger paintings I decided to try one theme per week, starting with Space Apes. That should help me do certain common parts factory style.

    This week's quota is 150 baseball cards, 40 block prints, 15 small canvas panels, and 15 square feet of canvas wall hangers. Deadline Friday because Saturday is a show day.

    *$10,000 based on cut-to-bone sale price, one month defined as 4 weeks of 5 days each. Maniacs gotta go manic within maniacal limits.

     

    I was rifling through an old bag and found a 2019 Walter Moore Ape piece. I put it up on my cork board today. Godspeed.

    • Drool 1
  3. On 11/17/2022 at 10:29 AM, WBT said:

    I'm about a 1/3 of the way into The Passenger so far and really liking it.  It's funnier than the McCarthy I've read previously.

    Would like to hear your final review once you've finished in light of your last post about White Noise-- I just received my hardback copy in the mail today but have at least 3 in the queue before I can get to it.

    I'm currently reading:

    51wI2DXEBSL._SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_

  4. On 11/5/2022 at 7:09 AM, WBT said:

    41xLRqDfXTL._AC_SY780_.jpg

    Meh.  A 300 page slog through existential dreck before finally something sort of happens in the last 2 chapters.  And I know the plot isn't the point but still.

    The takedowns of consumerism and technology in American life still apply I guess but all the specificity made them feel dated.

    REALLY! wow. Just goes to show how subjective things like art and literature can be. White Noise is a Top 10 all timer for me.

    I stumbled across the interview from 1997 today actually, topically. I didn't much enjoy Zero K which was the last book of DeLillo I read and I've never read Underworld which has sat on my bookshelf unopened for at least 10 years...

  5. 5 hours ago, mdmost said:

    I think Avatar is much more appreciated overseas than here in the US. The foreign market was really what made it the highest grossing movie at the time. It almost did 2 billion worldwide compared to 750M here. That's till pretty impressive. I think it hit at the right time with the CGI and 3D. I don't feel audience are as into that now but we'll find out in under a month. 

    Having seen half the movie one time a decade ago, I was ambivalent about going on the Avatar ride in Animal Kingdom, but it was awesome. That's all I got.

  6. You guys all with great answers are not being led witnesses and vocalizing what DefinitelyNotHollywood was trying to get you to say that he's in the bag for PUTIN and RUSSIA and CHYNA! He's clearly doing this to divide America and hurt us as a billionaire interoperative working from the inside out! Plus he's a foreigner; he can't be President! Distrust the motives of the foreign billionaire!

    • Fuck You 6
  7. 53 minutes ago, Captainant said:

    Well for one, most of the facebook insanity happens inside of groups that you won't see unless you're connected to them either directly or by a friend. Twitter is all public all the time, so that sort of hate speech is much easier to get amplified and turn into an embarrassment for twitter, whereas on FB, it's somewhat easier to hide and suppress before it becomes a major story

    Sounds like Facebook then is much more insidious and dangerous. Twitter seems to be transparent with their lunacy for all to see and subsequently flee and flock to Mastadon. I mean that’s what you and everyone else complaining already did, right? I’ve read Mastadon has really taken off the last month or so.

    • Haha 1
    • Fuck You 2
  8. 18 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:


    Once Avatar 2 loses about $1.5B (it needs $2B to break even), they’re gonna really regret buying Fox.

    I was wondering about this. 10 years ago when this movie was a smash hit I didn't get it then, and I don't get it now, but I wonder if our culture will show up for this movie. I can't imagine millions of people are just dying to see this movie, as if it's peak Marvel or Star Wars or something like that. But, like I said, I didn't get the love for the first one either so what do I know?

    • Hook 'Em 1
  9. 4 minutes ago, mdmost said:

    I think that could be it. Feels like Chapek was only interested in streaming. I too didn't see anything on Strange World other than a couple spots and a billboard. Though given the reviews I've seen, perhaps they knew it was going to be a bad movie. 

    I was reading that Iger is announcing layoffs in the name of creativity and storytelling. “It will be interesting to see if Iger double’s down on Disney IP for Disney+ and abandon more general purpose exclusive streaming, i.e. admit that the 21st Century Fox acquisition was a mistake”.

  10. 4 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

    doesn't seem to be much effort at marketing.  i've barely heard of this thing.  i don't see ads for it.  i've got three kids, they've never said a word about it.

    I wonder if that has something to do with the strategy and why chapek was fired and Iger is back?

  11. On 11/18/2022 at 12:42 AM, Yev Kassem said:

    Feels like the last several Pixar movies have been made for the grown up kids that they used to make movies for. Outside of Luca (which was just ok), every Pixar film since Onward had been a dud. 

    They need to get back to making kid movies at heart, with winks to the parents. 

    To this point:

    Disney’s animated movies keep bombing. Strange World registered one of the worst opening weekends for Disney in the modern era, and it’s on track to lose $100 million overall, according to Variety. Coming after Lightyear’s flop, the box-office bomb will draw the attention of newly installed CEO Bob Iger, who needs to figure out how to revive Disney’s once-vaunted animation lineup. (Fun fact: Strange World had the worst three-day opening for a Disney animated film since The Emperor’s New Groove in 2000

  12. 2 minutes ago, Chopper said:

    There's at least 3 issues with Apple and twatter.

    -Musk doesn't want to abide by terms of the ap store, which front & center require 30% of in-app purcahses to the builder of the store (apple) in exchange for the right to sell your app there

    -Apple doesn't want to advertise on twatter, at least for now, because of unmoderated nazis and sexual harassment

    -Apple may not want to advertise on twatter because its ceo is taking off his hood and exposing his pro-nazi proclivities.

     

    What might be an interesting, unintended effect of this brouhaha (still TBD) is what this mummer's farce will mean for putting more visibility on Apple's 30% cut. A lot has been made in the last 12 months of if it should be legal and it has regulator's attention. I think it all started with the Fortnite guys firing the first shot years ago, but Elmo could put some gas on that fire. Apple might not want that smoke or they might not care at all and brush Elon away like a gadfly.

    This is why Elmo's Twitter is more entertaining than a soap opera, every week there is some new dramatic story arc.

  13. 1 minute ago, Goredho said:

    Right now, most big tech companies dev group is organized into small teams where a senior resource with significant experience is leading 3-4 younger engineers that are 0-5 years removed from college with a good comp sci or related degree.  The senior resource spends a significant amount of time shepherding the less experienced resources on their team.  They help with design, review code and otherwise serve as a voice of experience to their young energy and mental acuity.

    I don’t think you would see all devs go away, but I think you might see AI filling the role of those young workers with a seasoned engineer essentially shepherding the AI.  They would oversee what the AI generates, be a gatekeeper for its generated code being applied and likely be your point of contact for bugs and errors in business logic.  They might have to fix the flaws in the code generated by the AI.  So coder jobs don’t go to zero, but they might be cut by 50% or more.

    I think this sounds logical. A lot of what people don't understand is the labor demand new IT (AI/ML included) tools create just to manage them. It's not a net FTE savings as much as it is taking lower skill, lower value positions and replacing them with tooling and then having your labor manage those tools and programs. In a lot of instances, the total cost of ownership is actually more just on unforeseen and unbudgeted maintenance from a smaller, more specialized pool of talent.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  14. 12 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

    twitter officially sucks now. the feed is fucked and in the last 24 my followers have grown exponentially - most appear to be bots from asia

    You should quit and go to Mastadon or . Vote with your feet!

  15. 1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    Here’s the thing: work is not bullshit, but many jobs are and we equate jobs with work. 

    As far as what to do with morons, let me recommend the late jet-age, cynical sci-fi masterpiece “The Marching Morons.” 
     

    https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm

    Also this isn't the forum for it, but a certain Asian-American from the newly established Forward party had a few ideas about how to address the unskilled population and displaced workers in the automation revolution...

    Maybe his ideas will be adopted in the future since he's so unlikable to most people, it seems.

  16. 9 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

    This isn't hard, making up "very rough estimates" that don't appear to be based on anything at all isn't objective.

    Ah okay, so I guess any attempt to try and model out business impact (using conservative SG&A benchmarks and assumptions, but admittedly assumptions) by non-biased business reporters is bad pool. But internet posters like briskettexan saying "revenue good, advertisers and layoffs bad, twitter go bye-bye" is considered smart conjecture and objective analysis. cool, cool.

    You can just say "I think his assumptions are bad and the model is wrong/bad-- not buying this" rather than call the guys integrity in question, right? Especially since you had zero clue the source.

    • Hook 'Em 1
    • Fuck You 2
  17. On 11/27/2022 at 10:50 AM, TexasHooch said:

    I moved from TX to Minneapolis in my early 30's and never looked back, but it's definitely not for everyone.  Winters can suck for sure, but tbh the weather has been a net gain over Austin for me.  You get 4 legit seasons, and the summers are absolutely amazing. 

    You haven't said enough about your likes and dislikes for any of us to really know, but in general the people who tend to like the Twin Cities are outdoors nuts. There are parks, bike paths, and lakes everywhere and- for the hearty among us- plenty of ways to enjoy winter activities (ice fishing, fat biking, nordic skiing, snowshoeing). The sports scene is good (variety if not quality) and the food and beer scene is great. For living, single 30 somethings typically get drawn to the North Loop and Mill District areas, which have absolutely exploded with apartments and condos over the past 10 years.

     

     

    My work tried to get me to do this and offered a lot of money to move to Golden Valley/Minneapolis and we seriously considered it. Made a couple of trips, scouted real estate, downtown, etc.

    Ultimately, I couldn't do it because of the weather and my wife and I just didn't want to live in such cold conditions. Also if you like a really progressive city, MSP is definitely a place to consider.

    I now work for another company, in some part because of this, but like you, I have no regrets.

    To the OP I'd say it's worth the investment to go and stay and shop and generally move around a city you are thinking of relocating to and get your own feel for it rather than just doing it. Scout it out.

×
×
  • Create New...